“Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him.” – Proverbs 26:12

“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.” – attributed to Confucius

Human beings are not stupid.

I believe this. I believe that twelve ordinary jurors can judge guilt or innocence as competently as a panel of experienced judges. I believe that an ordinary Christian can read and interpret the Bible as well as any ordained priest or minster. I believe that an ordinary, politically informed citizen can cast a vote, or manage a public office, as wisely as (and often more wisely than) any career politician in Washington.

If this was not true, democracy would be impossible. Trust in the intelligence of one’s fellow man is the foundation, the sine qua non, of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

And yet, all around me, I see liberals. Human beings, of theoretically normal intelligence, who think, and act, and vote, in terribly stupid ways. And these liberals are <i>not</i> stupid! They work at their jobs, and manage their private affairs, and, in most things not involving liberal talking points, act in a normal, competent fashion.

So why do smart people believe in stupid things?

The Greek philosopher Aristotle, in the 4th century BC, taught that maggots appeared of their own accord in rotting meat, and that other animals were formed out of mud or sand or rock or other inorganic sources, in a process called <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation”>spontaneous generation</a>. It would have taken a very simple experiment to disprove this (seal meat up away from flies and see if maggots appear), but, for thousands of years, people accepted it as absolute truth. It wasn’t until 1668 that Francesco Redi first tried to test this theory by experiment, and even then, it would be another two hundred years before the scientific community finally accepted the basic principle that all life is born from its own kind.

Why did it take so long to disprove a claim that was so easily disproved? Just this: no one thought to question it. The claim of spontaneous generation was passed down from a trusted source, and, for thousands of years, that trust was sufficient.

This is a human failing. I, and you, and everyone in the world, hold some beliefs that simply aren’t true, just because we’ve never thought to question them: because we heard these ‘facts’ from people or books we trusted, or because we learned them so long ago that we don’t really think consciously about them. And because we, as humans, build on the ‘facts’ we think we know, we can construct towering edifices of rational thought, fairy castles in the air, on foundations made of quicksand. There are entire fields of study in every major university that would fall apart in an instant if anybody there really thought about the basic assumptions underlying them. But it never happens. Like Wile E. Coyote in the old cartoons, the evolutionary biologist or gender studies professor can keep walking, and talking, and building his theories on thin air – as long as he doesn’t look down!

Liberals, especially, do this. There’s no shame in it; liberals are human too. But the stupid things liberals believe are especially widespread and – because they vote based on them – especially dangerous; more to the point, the flaws in their basic reasoning are especially obvious to anyone except another liberal.

This site is about highlighting this sort of liberal ignorance. If someone believes something so stupid, so obviously wrong, that a five-year-old child can spot the flaw in it, they deserve to be laughed at. First, for entertainment; second, and more importantly, so that they can correct, and teach others to correct, their mistaken presuppositions. So, friends and readers, if you believe:

that man created God, and not the other way around…

that the entire universe suddenly, randomly ‘popped’ into existence…

that random chance can turn bacteria into humans…

that morality is relative, and the difference between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ depends on who you ask…

that there is no biological difference between men and women…

that there is no biological difference between homosexual and heterosexual activity…

that a fetus five minutes before birth is not a human being, but an infant five minutes after birth is…

that burning a flag is ‘free speech’, but saying a prayer in school is ‘hate speech’…

that straight white males are oppressing every other human being in the United States…

that government bureaucrats can make better decisions about your life than you can…

that raising taxes strengthens the economy…

that human industry is capable of destroying the Earth…

and that the words you use to describe a class of people are more important than how you really feel about them…

then you might end up featured on this site. Please don’t take it personally, dear reader. I don’t tease because I hate. In fact, I hope that you’ll take this as an opportunity to reconsider your presuppositions about the world. Perhaps, sometime in the future, you’ll return to this site, we can laugh together about the silly things you used to believe.

And to my readers who are not liberals: congratulations! But don’t let your amusement become mockery, or your superior knowledge lead to contempt. What we know comes from what we’ve learned, or what we’ve been taught, or who we trust; there, but for the grace of God, go you and I. You might even believe some of the things above, even if you don’t realize you believe them. So as you smile at the ignorance of others, take a minute to humbly consider what you believe, too. For the unexamined life, as Socrates said, is not worth living.

(And hey, if you find a quote online that expresses liberal talking points in an especially silly way, send it in! I’m always looking for new material.)